How I manage to do all the stuff I cram into one day?
Simple - something suffers. One person cannot accomplish everything all the time without cutting corners somewhere, somehow. For example, at one time in my life I was a full time student, worked full time, was raising a teenager, remodeling a house (I once hung curtains at midnight in order to avoid homework) and was in a relationship with someone who also demanded my time. Guess what got cut? Yup! The relationship. What can I say, something had to go! No great loss either way it turns out. So, the squeaky wheel does not ALWAYS get the grease, sometimes it just gets replaced or we just go without out it. In my case it was the latter. Lesson to all.
You know that saying, not even sure who said it first but it could have been Moses, he seems like he was a busy guy; plagues, leading, the Ten Commandments, miracles, etc - anyway, the saying is, "If you want something done, ask a busy person." I guess it makes sense that busy people are able to cram a lot into their lives so why not just one more thing? Busy people also seem to have a hard time saying no, delegating and allowing someone else to do anything for them because honestly, half the reason they're so goddamned busy is because they're too freakin' anal and want things done the way they want them done. Oh wait, is that just me? Crap!
Ok, so how do I work full time, be a step mom, clean a house, get laundry done, do crafts, projects, remodel/paint, sew, cook, bake, write a blog, grocery shop, be a good girlfriend and all the endless other things that happen or need to happen to make my world go round every day? Well, it's not easy and something always suffers.
First of all - the blog isn't going to self destruct if I don't write it. My random thoughts do not require constant sharing (as much as I'd like to think they do) and luckily for me I can type about 80 wpm, not error free, but error free enough that I can get a lot of thoughts typed out in a very short amount of time. I work on it a little at a time too. Also, I don't sleep much (something I've begun to remedy with over the counter meds cuz it was seriously to the point of crazy) so I think a lot. When I think a lot, everything is kind of RIGHT THERE (points to head) waiting to be put into writing. But if it doesn't happen, the blog writing that is, or anything else that has made its way to the "Low Priority" shelf, it's really not the end of the world. The moral of the story: know what's important/pressing and what can wait. If you're short on time rather than trying to do everything half assed, do the most important things the best you possibly can.
Second, I do a lot of things at once. I guess it's
multitasking, but it's more than that. I have an order of things in my head that is constantly being revised and rerouted depending on who, what, where & why (DEFCON level....). If Y & Z can be accomplished while waiting for X, then that is the order of things. Usually it's much more complex than that, but that's the idea. I'm constantly organizing in my head, perpetually scheming ways to get more done in less time and making actual lists. It's much easier for me to keep my life organized when I have what needs to be done written down. Writing on actual paper may seem archaic to some when I could easily make a note in my phone. Here is the problem with the phone: I pick it up to make a note, note is made but I don't stop there. I suddenly need to check facebook, email, text someone, read this, look-up that, play Angry Birds, or Words With Friends/Word Feud, do some real estate stalking (a girls gotta know what property values are in the area!) and the latest and greatest time suck is Pinterest. Dear lord I think I need an intervention! Anyway, all those things are time sponges and if you're not aware of your tendency to fall down rabbit holes, you can waste hours before you even realize you did.
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| Buh-bye Alice! |
Lists - yes I make them and yes I use them. I make lists for things that need to be done, things I'd like to do (thank you
Pinterest.com, I love you and I hate you at the same time!), things we need, listed by which store has them. For example, my WalMart list is certainly not mixed with my Lowes list! Heaven forbid! Unless there is a possibility of the item being in two places.... Sounds anal, but the reasoning is, if I don't make it there, I can ask the b/f. Or if he is going to one of those places I can say, "can you pick up ____ "? Rather than, "hey, I'm going to Lowes, you need anything"? "uhhhhhhhhhhhh...........I did, but I don't remember what it was........if I think of it I'll call or text you" only to remember what the "thing" was about 20 seconds after he walks in the door. Fail. Guess who gets to make another trip to the store for what they forgot? If I'm at work and I need to remember something when I get home, I send myself an email so I will have it on my phone.
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| Let the multitasking begin! |
Example Saturday
Woke up around 11:00 a.m. cuz MAN I WAS TIRED! Before I've even made it down the stairs I already have a mental list of what I want/need to do or get done and I'm calculating how to best get all that done - I walk through the kitchen, turn on the oven to make muffins because it has to pre-heat, start coffee because it takes a minute or two, make my way to the laundry room, sort the laundry, start a load of laundry because I have to wait for the coffee anyway, go back to the kitchen, wash the dishes from the night before that the dish fairies left for me, mix up the muffins (coffee still making), throw them in the oven, set the timer which gives me anxiety because now I only have 14 minutes til they are done and having a time limit seems to make time go by faster - weird. Pour coffee, clean up the muffin making dishes, dry them, put all of the dishes away, sweep the kitchen floor, decide it doesn't need mopped just yet - cuz you know, my coffee is cooling and I NEED to be doing something while I wait for that, look around the dining room/living room for stuff that needs to be picked up, put away, cleaned etc. Check the fridge, do we need anything? Coffee is still cooling......its a HUGE cup, more of a trough I think. If we need anything, which we always do, I start making a grocery/stuff list. Ahhh coffee..... check email, check facebook (it's Saturday!! Some time wasting is allowed!), get the muffins out of the oven, let them cool for a minute or two, transfer to container and take some upstairs for the b/f who is still sleeping but will wake up wanting muffins and milk knowing I made muffins, notice that there is more laundry in the basket that I missed, take that downstairs, sort it into remaining piles, clean something else, research something online, switch the laundry to the dryer, start another load, pour another cup of coffee, clean the muffin tin, grab lists (the usuals are Winco, Walmart & Lowes), switch coffee to car mug, ahhhhh coffee, decide which project I'm going to tackle today, make sure I have everything I need to do it, if not add it to "the list". Oh crap....feeling queasy, forgot to eat! I even made muffins, and now they're all gone!! Look for something appealing but now I have "coffee tummy" and nothing is appealing except maybe a cracker, decide to eat later and vow not to drink any more coffee (today, just today). An entire pot is probably enough....maybe... And that's just within a couple hours or so of being awake.
Standing at the door coffee in hand (it was already in the cup, no more after THIS) ready to take on the world, I remembered that the girls have a daddy daughter dance at 6:30 this evening and I have an appointment with my hairdresser at 4, it's now 1 p.m. I go wake up b/f (he works at night so asleep at 1 in the afternoon is normal folks!) to find out if I need to pick up the youngest who's at her moms, yes indeed I do, oh and take her to get a dress she has picked out at the mall which ended up being so expensive that I would have had to trade the kid for the dress but then I'd have no kid to put in the dress soooooooo we had to go find another dress which caused an epic tantrum of disappointment and attitude beyond her years which caused me to circle the mall pretending to look for another store but really letting her calm down and get over it, oh and get some accessories & shoes and order a couple corsages on the way home for pickup on the way to the dance, get home at 3:30 just in time to turn right back around to get to my appointment that's 30 minutes away at 4:00, make it to the appointment on time, hairdresser was super speedy, stop for gas on the way back lest I run out of fuel AND time, get home by 5:45 to get the girls hair done, thankfully the teenager was helping with one girls hair, get them fed and out the door to be at their dance at 6:30. Girls leave with their dad only to show up a couple minutes later with an extra little girl (one of the girls friends who's dad couldn't go) running into the house with a dress and shoes in hand. B/f takes off to pick up corsages while extra girl changes and I fix her hair, throw a necklace on her and then out the door they all go (perfectly coordinated too by some stroke of luck). They were only a little bit late. And they were all completely adorable.
Once they were gone I started sewing something, or taking something apart for repurposing or upcycling, whatever the cool term is these days that I'd dyed red the night before (what a mess!! but omg it's such a pretty color of red!), cooked a piece of metal, yep - metal, in the oven for some project the b/f was working on, took the teenage stepdaughter to the store, cleaned up the kitchen so it was all clean in the morning, a weird pet peeve I have and had just sat down in bed to watch some TV around 9:15 when the b/f and the girls came thundering into the house. And now, the house is alive with the sound of girl screeches and squeals and other random noises that I was completely unaware that girls made. I raised a boy. Girls are a whole different story. Completely. Totally. Zero comparison.
So, Saturday was a success, at least in my head and a mellow day compared to what a Saturday looked like just over a year ago - I didn't get done exactly what I wanted to get done, but I also figured out early enough that I had to get stuff done for the Daddy/Daughter dance so it didn't throw my brain into an overdrive frenzy of detouring, rerouting and catching up. My b/f's brain does not work this way and it doesn't make me crazy only because I know I'm "special". And that's why we work.
I guess to summarize my time management skills I would say the most important thing to me is lists. There is no possible way to remember everything that floats through my head that needs to get done or ideas I have and it seems like if I write it down, then I never forget - if I assume I'll remember, chances are the thought will be gone, replaced by another thought and now the overlapping thought that I can't remember what I was just thinking about 5 seconds ago. Its a very frustrating busy space in my head. If only I had the ability to turn all that off every once in a while. Lists, yes lists - not only helpful to organize the thoughts, it's also a weird feeling of accomplishment just being able to scratch something off your list. A visualization of accomplishments. I do it at work, I get a lot done, I'm very efficient.
The other thing is that something will always suffer, be incomplete or hastily done - no one is superhuman. I try to be, but I'm just not. In the school/work/teenager/remodeling days it seemed like I never ever stopped. I was one of those people who got more done by noon than most people did in an entire week. I always had a plan, and a contingency plan and a contingency plan B, and so on. My little brothers lived with me for a while and would beg me to JUST SIT STILL! It was actually impossible for me to do, sadly.
I think it has something to do with my childhood, that I can't sit still, I feel like the world is passing me by, like I need to cram as much as I can into the time I have because I missed so much (18 years!!) and now I have to make up for it. I've always had an obsession with time though, ever since I can remember - it was always very very important for me to know what time it was. I never went to school so I wasn't waiting for the bell, I just needed to know what time it was all the time. If I didn't have a watch, I had to find a clock. But I always had a watch. And I love clocks! Now I have my phone and the clock in the corner of my monitor, the watch on my wrist, the clock in my car, the clock on the wall at home, on the microwave, the stove, the coffeemaker, the clock in the bathroom, the clock on my nightstand, I would have a wall of clocks that served as art if I really wanted people to think/know I was crazy - I ALWAYS need to know what time it is. Always. And, even if I'm wearing a watch, I have to also look at my phone, or my monitor, or the wall, etc, as if one might be lying to me...
When I moved in with my b/f he made one request: Bring it down a notch (or ten). He would bring it up a few. I have made significant progress in this area and do manage to sit still now for longer than five minutes at a time and even promised to make a valid effort to stay in bed on the weekends til 10 a.m, or maybe it was 9:30, even if it meant that I was just laying in bed watching TV. I accomplish it every now and again, waking up at 11 for example. There is a good chance that I need to be medicated (or just drink more) and at the very least should probably see a good shrink (or just drink more). Until then, I'll just call myself "productive".
